The legal team representing Nick Sandmann has filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking $250 million in damages against The Washington Post, according to Nick's attorney.

Todd McMurtry and L. Lin Wood, representing the Covington Catholic teenager and his family, filed the suit on Tuesday, according to a tweet from McMurtry.

The tweet included a link to McMurtry's law firm website, which included text of the lawsuit. The suit was not yet available as of Tuesday evening in the docket of the Eastern District of Kentucky, the federal court where the attorneys say the lawsuit was filed.

The suit points to "no less than six false and defamatory articles" concerning Nick published by The Post.

The Post's coverage is likened to a "modern-day form of McCarthyism" by Nick's attorneys in the suit. The attorneys claim The Post competed with other national outlets to "claim leadership" of a mob of "bullies which attacked, vilified, and threatened Nicholas Sandmann."

The attorneys accuse The Post of reporting a false and defamatory "gist" that Sandmann "assaulted and/or physically intimidated Phillips" and "instigated a confrontation with Phillips and subsequently engaged in racist conduct."

Nathan Phillips is the Omaha tribe elder seen playing a drum and singing in the viral videos taken last month at the Lincoln Memorial. Covington Catholic students stand around him, with some chanting and performing the tomahawk chop.

Nick stands face-to-face with Phillips for a portion of the encounter.

The lawsuit also accuses The Post of reporting what Phillips said in interviews, including that he felt threatened by students, that students chanted "build that wall" and that a "guy in the hat stood in my way."

An investigation by an agency hired on behalf of the Diocese of Covington cleared the CovCath students of wrongdoing, finding no students engaged in racist or offensive statements. The report acknowledged some students performed the tomahawk chop.

Phillips, in a statement, stood by his original assessment that the situation was dangerous and the students' behavior was "disrespectful, racially charged and harmful."

The suit also accuses The Post of publishing a "defamatory" statement issued by the diocese. The statement was shared with media outlets after the incident and it condemned the students' actions.

One Post story used the following description, which Nick's attorneys identified as defamatory toward Nick: "Surrounding him (Phillips) are a throng of young, mostly white teenage boys ... with one standing about a foot from the drummer's face wearing a relentless smirk."

Nick's attorneys declined to comment on questions posed by The Enquirer Tuesday evening.

The suit also claims that by publishing its first story, The Post fanned "the flames of the social media mob into a mainstream media frenzy of false attacks and threats against Nicholas."

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azcentral media critic tries to make sense of the social media outrage over Savannah Guthrie's interview on NBC with student Nick Sandmann.
Arizona Republic

Jon Fleischaker, who represents the Louisville Courier-Journal and is general counsel for the Kentucky Press Association, earlier told The Enquirer that potential defendants against Nick's attorneys would have a "legitimate argument" that Nick would qualify as a limited-purpose public figure, as he participated in a public protest and has sought publicity on his own.

The suit claims Nick is a private figure because he previously had "no notoriety of any kind in the community at large" and his public statements after the incident, which included an appearance on NBC's "Today Show," were "reasonable, proportionate, and in direct response to the false accusations against him."

Fleischaker and David Marburger, a Cleveland-based attorney who spent years representing national media outlets, earlier told The Enquirer that verifiable facts, rather than opinions, must form the basis of a defamation claim.

Marburger cited a 1999 Kentucky Supreme Court ruling that found "only provable false assertions of fact can provide the basis for a defamation action."

Sandmann's attorneys said the suit was not pursued to "further a political agenda."

Also in the suit, the attorneys write that the amount they are seeking on behalf of Nick is equal to "the amount Jeff Bezos, the world's richest person, paid in cash for the Post."

Bezos said earlier this month that the National Enquirer threatened to publish explicit photos of him unless he abandoned an investigation of the outlet.

The text of the suit, as posted to McMurtry's law firm site, includes the line, "Respectfully submitted this 19th day of February, 2019."

"Lin (Wood) and Todd (McMurtry) will continue to bring wrongdoers before the court," reads a brief note posted to McMurtry's law firm website, "to seek damages in compensation for the harm so many have done to the Sandmann family. This is only the beginning."